Getting Rid of Shoes and Commitments [6:32m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (84)

Summary: The rules for getting rid of too much stuff apply equally as well to trimming down your todo and commitment lists. Set a limit of what you can do, and don’t take anything else on until you finish or drop something you’ve already started.

If you’d like to hear more tips on how to stop carrying around your overfilled boxes of commitments, get FREE updates by RSS or by Email.

If you work from your home or would like to work from home and have a family (your partner counts as family if you don’t have kids!), stop skimming, sit up, and pay attention. This may be the most important thing you have read in a while.

A friend of mine recently quit her stay at home consulting job due to her work-life balance getting out of whack. I’ll let her out herself in due time, but let’s just say she’s no small fry and she’s very good at what she does.

The problem was that her work became the only thing that she was doing - but she’s a wife and mother, too. Her words:

“I spent so much time and effort trying to be physically present at home that I forgot about being mentally and psychologically present.”

If you work from home, ask yourself whether you’re fully present or just physically present. If you’re planning on working from home, ask yourself whether you’ll be able to separate work from life.

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 Why Life Choices Are So Damned Hard to Make: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (761)

Summary: Life choices are so hard to make because there’s a Gap between important questions and their answers are filled with things that can’t be quantified. To answer important life questions, you have to start asking different questions.

It’s a long one, folks (almost 17 minutes!) - but I think it’s worth a listen.

References:

• Don Clark has a great article on Bloom’s Taxonomy, if you’d like to know more about it.
• Evelyn has a beautiful post on the Gap as it relates to the space between thoughts. It’s a wonderful, informative read.

As I was uploading this screencast to YouTube (last week), I checked Twitter and saw that Duff released the second part of his interview with Clay in which they touch on learning to ask the right questions. Great job, guys!

@Duff: Great job with the podcasts. Thanks for allowing me a spot with the PowerUp! tip - I can’t believe the cheesy one made the cut! I really enjoyed the conversation last week.

@Clay: I feel like we’re swirling around the same ideas from different perspectives. You provide some really good insights in the series. Keep it up, my inspiring friend!

I would’ve commented there, and I may yet, but I did such a good job of screwing that up last time that I decided to make somewhat intelligible comments here.

 

 The Zen of a Messy Disk: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download (88)

Summary: Are you struggling to keep your desk clean because having a clean desk makes you happy or because you think you should have a clean desk? Is the simplicity of having a clean desk a need you have, or are you making someone else’s need your own? True wisdom is knowing what you need, and finding a way to solve that need - not fabricating a need to solve or finding a solution for a need you don’t have.

I hope you enjoy it. If you’d like to hear or see the future podcasts and screencasts, get FREE updates by RSS or by Email.

This week’s Food for Thought:

What’s the difference between offline friends and online “friends”?

(If you answered that online friends are ones you made online, you get 10 Smartass points. Proceed directly to the university nearest you and sign up as a philosophy major with said points.)

Sure, it’s a Web1.0 type of question, but I think in the digital world we live in, it’s become an even more pressing question. We now have so many ways to connect with people we’ve never physically met, and our connectedness gets tighter and tighter every day.

Yet many people think there’s still some qualitative difference between the types of friendships such that offline friends get the status of true friends and online ones are “friends,” with the quotation signifying something like people we’ve met online, talked to, and like - but not to be confused with friends sans quotations.

Here’s the deal, though: through blogging, I’ve met more people that I actually like than I generally do in the real world. It’s also much easier for me to get to know people online than off - you don’t have to worry with sometimes-inhibiting social factors like gender, status, and race.

But there’s also the weird feature with online “friends” that I know more about them and less about them at the same time. I can tell you how old their kids are, what their kids like, what their favorite type of music is, what they’re most scared of, and all sorts of very personal facts - yet I don’t know what they’re kids’ names are or whether the name they use is actually their real one.

It’s strange, really - we expose more of our inner selves through online relationships at the same time that we hide more of outer selves.

I find this interesting because it’s the exact opposite of what we do in offline relationships.

I was reading an offline friend’s Facebook page the other day and he mentioned some things that he liked and disliked. I’ve known this guy for thirteen years and I didn’t know some of the stuff - and it was pretty basic stuff that should’ve come up in the course of our friendship. That happens to me quite often, and I don’t spend much time crawling around on Facebook and Myspace.

Something else to consider for those with blogging “friends”: consider how much time per week we spend reading each other’s writing. Sure, a lot of the stuff can be very impersonal - my blog being no different - but in some ways those are conversations that we are a part of sometimes on a daily basis. I don’t talk to my offline friends on a daily, or sometimes weekly, basis - yet I leave comments and shoot emails to my online friends everyday.

I should note that one of the things that makes blogging “friends” so nice is that they are dealing with the same issues and you don’t have to introduce them to the blogosphere at the same time you’re talking about something you’re thinking about. They get it because they’re doing it - so you can get down to the meat of the conversation without trying to explain what RSS is so that they understand why RSS subscribers matter.

My point: many of us are spending more time and attention on our online “friends” than our offline friends. From one perspective, that would seem to make their friendship more important to us than offline friendships.

Yet, at the same time, most of us place more weight on the offline friendships, and they still remain friends sans quotations.

For many of us, this issue is not merely an academic point any more. The online world is a critical part of our reality - and part of that reality has a very social component. Our lives are enriched by people we have never, and likely will never, physically meet - yet they still get second-class status as far as the type of relationship we have with them goes.

Is it time to drop the quotations? Is it time to stop the favoring of physical friendships over the non-physical ones?

(The worry here, of course, is that the people reading this blog have a much higher likelihood of saying “Yes” because they are already on the blogosphere. But consider what the answer would be if you were answering someone who wasn’t already part of the choir.)

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Photo Credit: Rainfalls

There’s an interesting trend going on in the productivity niche. For the longest time, the focus of productivity has been on how we can get more done. Here recently, the trend is on quitting.

That we’re at this stage in the dialect is fairly predictable. After years of being led by acolytes of the corporate masters into thinking that we need to get more done, we’re tired. We recognize that we can’t get it all done - so now we’re quitting.

Another reason we’re at the quitting stage in the discussion is due to the overwhelming popularity and influence of Tim Ferriss’ 4-Hour Workweek. Tim makes a very strong and persuasive case for quitting - and the quitting bug has bitten many people.

But I think we need to think about something here. While I completely agree with Tim and the Quitting Cult that quitting is a logical option and, in some cases, the most reasonable course of action, let’s be real here - not too many of us are in the position to quit.

Take a second to consider that many of the disciples of the Quitting Cult share an important feature: they’re single.

Before I get tons of comments (okay, my readership is not that big) that cite many cases of married people with kids quitting and becoming happier or accusing me of blatant ad hominem, let me just submit that quitting and facing the prospect of not making ends meet for a few months is fine when you’re making that choice for yourself. When you’re making that choice for others, though, the consequences take on a completely different weight.

So, I think the Cult is right that many people are afraid to quit, but I also think that many people choose not to quit because they have obligations to others that they feel they need to see through reasonably, and quitting, often times, is not conducive to filling obligations to others.

But the Quitting Cult is also right that something has to give. We can’t continue to live the lives we live the way we live them, and something has got to give.

Rather than being taught how to get more done (being more productive), we are in serious need of being taught how to do fewer things that are more valuable. What the rest of us need to be taught is the art of the strategic withdrawal.

What’s the difference between strategically withdrawing and quitting? The former is a program that allows us to fulfill the obligations that are value-added or important while not taking on any more that aren’t. It recognizes that there are some obligations that we have that we really don’t want, but that it’s nonetheless important to see them through. The starting point for strategic withdrawal begins with internal conditions, i.e. it starts with the type of life you want to live, rather than external conditions, i.e. being in a job you don’t like.

To be fair, Tim does a great job of designing a program that allows us to strategically withdraw without simply quitting. Those following in his footsteps may be stressing quitting more for the rhetorical point, and, if that’s the case, we may be advocating the same course of action.

At some undetermined point in the future I’d like talk more about the steps for strategic withdrawal in detail. But since I hate critiquing without supplementing it with an alternative, I’ll make some preparatory suggestions.

• Don’t take on any more externally-motivated commitments from this point forward

You’ve already made commitments in the past. Whether or not you’ll be able to see them through is not quite the point yet. The point is to stop taking them on. Learn the art of saying “No.” Your default answer for all future externally-motivated commitments should be “No.”

• Figure out what living from the inside out means for you in your context

So few of us have know how to live our lives from the inside out, meaning that we let our talents, desires, and goals rather than societal standards dictate how we live our lives. Until you figure that out, you’ll continue to do the wrong things unless you get lucky through experimentation.

I stress in your context because being homeless while starting a new business may not be for you and your family. So it may turn out that you can’t live from the inside out right now - but you’re making a plan for what it looks like so that you can start acting on it.

• Determine which of the obligations you are actually important to your vision for yourself to complete

You may find that it’s important for you to finish something you’ve started even though you don’t like that task or don’t want to do it. The important thing is to do this on a case-by-case basis and not to decide that, holistically, you are going to be the type of person that fulfills obligations. Commitments are not all on par - some really do need to be let go.

• Get out of commitment debt

Okay, you’ve figured out what needs to go. If it’s something that you can quit - do so NOW and don’t lose any sleep for doing so. If you can’t, figure out which of those obligations you can get out as soon as possible with as little work as possible. What’s most important here is that people know that you are downscaling and you want to see things through, but you’re not taking any more additional work than you need to.

• Take the resources you gained from quitting or fulfilling your commitments and put them to completing the other unwanted commitments.

Not what you were expecting, eh? It’s better to clear the plate of unwanted crap rather than leaving it on there to irritate you as you start your new lifestyle. The sooner you can get rid of the unwanted, the sooner you can start living your life commitment-debt free.

The key thing throughout the program is to quit making commitments in the areas you’re trying to get out of. The reason people are recommending quitting is because it immediately gets you out of the tug of the future from those things you quit. The truth is, continually withdrawing is hard because so few of us know how to say no and we’re all too likely to keep committing to things we don’t want to do.

Quitting may be the route to go for some people. But strategic withdrawal is the way to go for the rest of us.

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We live in a world where tragedy befalls millions on a daily basis. The world may be better than it once was, but that doesn’t mean that it’s were it could be. It’s not hard to imagine how the world could be better.

But it’s hard to make the world we imagine a reality. What can we do about all of the problems when our hands are only so big? Imagine, then act!

I teach applied ethics, and the most common reason students give for not becoming active about social and political change is that they reason that their efforts will be fruitless since they, individually, can have very little effect on such large problems of international conflict, world poverty, genocide, AIDs, global warming, etc. Since they can’t have a marked impact on the problems, they conclude that they’re efforts won’t help.

What they fail to see, though, is that the small efforts of large groups of people make a huge impact on the problems. Or, conversely: we don’t remember the faceless hordes of Nazis that slew millions of people during the Holocaust - we remember Hitler. One man.

Why should we think that one man can be the cause of so much suffering and yet conclude that one person can’t be the cause of the same amount of progress?

I didn’t really explain any of this when I wrote about the Problem of Dirty Hands, so the tone of that post perhaps make me sound as if I take myself, and my efforts, way too seriously. Quite the contrary: I take myself, and my efforts, seriously enough.

By that, I mean that I know that my small efforts can have an impact and I feel responsible for those actions that I don’t do that would make the world better. We each have an obligation to help with the talents that we have - and that help is through action.

Here are some easy actions you can do to help:

• Find one pet issue or area you’d like to help

We can’t solve everything at once, but we can make one thing better. This is the “Imagine” part.

• Become educated about that issue

While wanting to help is admirable, it’s critical that you become educated about the issues. It’ll increase your confidence that what you’re doing helps, and it will better help you…

• Persuade others to join you

An easy way to “own” an issue is to get T-shirts for the issue and actually wear them. It markets the issue, but it also places you in the position to be an advocate for the issue. Warning: this requires some courage.

• Write your politicians

Draft a well-written, but personal, letter to your politicians letting them know that you care about the issue and that you expect them to do so, as well. If you have a small coalition forming, cite that coalition so that they know they’re not dealing with just one person but a block of voters.

• Develop a small way to help with that issue that you do on a regular basis

Evangelizing is great. Donating money to organizations that champion your issue is even better. The best thing you can donate, though, is your time and elbow grease - for that’s what most groups don’t get.

The point here is to start small. Don’t become the regional president of Amnesty International without attending a few meetings. But attend a meeting. Volunteer (for one day) to hand out fliers or mail newsletters.

While I’m not necessarily encouraging you to become a full-time activist, I am encouraging you to become active.

I’ll refer to Martin Luther King, Jr. again: it’s not the small majority of evil people that make the world as bad as it is - it’s the silence of the majority that stands by while the evil occurs. Don’t be a part of the silent majority.

My pet human rights issue: World Poverty. Because the right to free speech, for example, is useless if one doesn’t have the energy to speak.

My favorite non-government organization for World Poverty: The Heifer Project International. Because they not only help people in ways that make sense for their culture, but they also promote the “Pay it Forward” ethos through their program.

(Pick up the album, Instant Karma: The Amnesty International Campaign to Save Darfur, that the entry song comes from on Amazon. Proceeds from the campaign will go directly to support Amnesty International’s urgent work on Darfur and other human rights crises worldwide.)

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Even though I was unable to post this or last Friday’s meditation, it’s still a goal of mine to write something that steps away from the standard topics on Productive Flourishing and instead just gives something to think about. For this week, it’s not a meditation, but instead an applied philosophical problem.

Before you run away thinking “Oh No! Charlie’s hitting us over the head with philosophy again!,” rest assured that we’ll not be talking about whether color exists in the universe or some such thing. The problem we’ll be talking about is the Problem of Dirty Hands and how it relates to personal development.

In short, the Problem of Dirty Hands is a recognition that sometimes, to do something good, you have to get your hands (morally) dirty. It’s often applied to the political spectrum, because the part of the art of politics is promoting positions you don’t agree with so that your other agendas can be pushed forward.

But we’re not talking about politics. What I’m talking about is our involvement in social organizations. What has prompted this for me personally is that the Boy Scouts of America have contacted me several times wanting me to take part in their national Eagle Scout registry.

I’ll not get into all of the details of Scouting, but needless to say, being an Eagle Scout is a great honor and is the highest rank that a Scout can achieve. I used to be proud of the fact that I’m an Eagle Scout - that is, until I found out that the Boy Scouts of America have an exclusive policy towards people of alternative sexual orientations, agnostics, and atheists. There are four categories of people that can be denied registration from the Boy Scouts of America, and the fourth type (the other three are previously listed) are felons. Felons, agnostics, atheists, and the GLBTQ community - what a motley crew!

(For more information, visit Scouting For All’s webpage. Also keep in mind that my main contention is not whether the BSA should have the right to exclude whoever they wish, but whether I should take part in such an organization.)

The problem is that I am the person that I am due in large part to the wonderful men and women of the Boy Scouts and the experiences that I’ve had through that community. I also think that I could and should give back and help mold the next generation of Scouts. If you’ve been reading this blog for a bit, you also know that groups can be very effective agents for personal development. Being involved in groups of people committed to excellence helps you excel.

But I’m very uncomfortable being part of an organization that I feel is bigoted and shameful. Sure, individual and regional organizations may have defied the National Council and produced their own inclusive policies, at risk of being banned and censured, but the root point for me is that, officially, the organization has a bigoted and shameful policy that I don’t want to be a part of.

I’ve hitherto decided that it’s not worth getting my hands dirty - my moral cleanliness is more important to me than the potential good I might do. But some of the stuff I’ve been working on for my dissertation is starting to make me feel less secure in that position. To make the point clearer, I’ll give some perspectives for thought:

• “The Keep Your Hands Clean” Perspective:

What’s important is that you choose your conduct based off of what you think is right or wrong. It may be unfortunate that there could more good advanced in the world by you choosing an alternative action, but choosing a bad means for a good end is never justified.

• “The Get Your Hands Dirty” Perspective:

What’s important is that you choose your conduct based off of what produces the most good. If you can make the world better, and don’t do it, you are at least minimally morally responsible for the world being less well off than it otherwise could have been. Whether you get your hands dirty to pursue a good end or not do something that would create a better situation, your hands are still dirty.

• “The Get Your Hands Dirty But Clean Up the Work” Perspective

nother option is to stay within the organization whilst trying to change it. This perspective acknowledges the obligation to help while not accepting the undesirable features, but I still have to wonder whether, by promoting the organization (via participation in the organization’s projects, etc.), I am also promoting the organization’s policies.

Of course, there are other alternatives, such as finding other organizations that pursue similar ends without having the undesired exclusivity, but the question is whether those organizations are as effective as the Boy Scouts of America due to its cultural entrenchment.

That’s my specific problem, but it’s obviously just a species of a general problem. People from certain religious communities have a similar problem: is it worth remaining part of a church that begins to take on exclusivist and bigoted policies, even though those organizations at the same time promote otherwise noble social ends? Is it better to remain clean or to promote the social good, when they are mutually exclusive?

People in activist organizations are also in the same boat. I personally don’t agree with all of the policies of the NAACP, NOW, or the Sierra Club - but, then again, I think there’s a qualitative difference between not agreeing with the NAACP’s stance on affirmative action and disagreeing with the BSA’s policies that categorically devalue certain types of people on indefensible grounds.

Helping others and promoting social goods in the world is both intrinsically good and good for personal development since we become better people by actively doing things that make us better. And the best way, often times, to help other people and promote social goods is through collective activity, but sometimes being involved in those collectives make us dirty.

No answers here…just food for thought. What do you think?

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Photo Credit: Photos By Rose

We share something very unique with elephants. Elephants, though they’re one of the strongest animals on the planets, can be constrained with the smallest sticks and ropes.

In Southeast Asia, elephants are still used as a mode of transportation. Tourist are often amazed at the fact that the elephant handlers use small ropes tied to the ground with tiny sticks to keep an elephant in place.

The reason this works is because the handlers tie the elephants to huge trunks with large ropes when they are young. The young elephants pull and tug and fight until they tire out, and they soon learn that they cannot move when tied up.

The handlers then use increasingly smaller ropes and sticks, but the elephants never tug at them. They’ve learned that they simply cannot move when tied up.

Imagine, one of the strongest animals in the world, constrained by something that the smallest child could break free of.

But, really, how much better are we? Many people live their lives being afraid to try something because they’ve been convinced that it’s too hard, or because they’ve tried a few times and it didn’t work out for them.

Take music, for example. I know a lot of people who would like to learn how to play an instrument but are convinced that only musicians or people who are innately good can play music, with the end result that they never try…despite the fact that everyone learns how to play music (meaning that it’s a teachable skill).

I used to think I wasn’t creative because my older brother is much more natural of an artist than I am. He was gaining a lot of acclaim as a teenager for his drawing skills (and he’s a good musician, to boot), and at the time I couldn’t draw (or play) anything like he could. I “learned” that creativity was something some people (my brother) had and others (me) didn’t.

What happened that changed my outlook? I taught myself how to play guitar. Granted, I started when I was nineteen, so I may never be phenomenal, but I do pretty well. On some of my last visits home, I was able to hold my own with my brother.

Furthermore, although I still haven’t learned how to draw people and landscapes, I can sit down and illustrate designs and ideas by hand. Turns out that I am creative, just not in a way that I counted as creative when I was younger.

In other words, I’ve learned that small ropes and sticks can’t constrain the elephant within me.

Think about the limitations you’ve set for yourself or that’s been set for you by others. Tug at the rope a little.

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Photo Credit: artct45

The situation: you find yourself in a funk. I’m not talking about the Pepe’ Le Pew kind of funk - that just requires the generous application of soap and water. The kind of funk I’m talking about is where you’re almost inexplicably sad, slightly depressed, or down about something.

This happens to almost everyone every once in awhile. The goal here is not to figure out how to prevent getting in a funk, but rather to short-circuit the funk when it happens. This is why getting enough sleep is not on the list, because that’s not helpful when you’ve already deprived yourself of sleep.

Note also that I’m not talking about chronic depression. Though the suggestions below will help, coping with and recovering from chronic depression takes far more work and may require some radical changes to your lifestyle.

I have a checklist that I start going down when I recognize that I’m in a funk. It starts with the recognition that the easiest way to short-circuit a funk is to work on the physiological level first and then work to the emotional, social, and mental levels later- yes, this is the same Aristotelian schema that I discussed here. It takes its cues from cognitive therapy, which trains patients to become aware of negative thoughts and immediately take action to subvert those thoughts. Continue reading →